The Muslim conquest of India brought about changes there as dramatic
as those brought in Europe by the destruction of Rome by the Huns.
The most tragic of these changes was the virtual disappearance of
Buddhism. At the end of the 16th century, Abul Fazl was able to
write that Buddhism could be found nowhere in India, although he
says when he went to Kashmir he "met with a few old men of
this persuasion but saw none among them learned..." However,
contrary to popular belief, Buddhism was not completely dead in
India. Tiny scattered pockets of Buddhists continued to cling to
their faith or more usually a corrupted version of it. Remarkably,
some of these Buddhists even managed to make pilgrimage to Bodh
Gaya. Visits by several groups of chiefs and their wives from Sindh
during the early 14th century are known from inscriptions they scratched
on the paving stones in the chamber of the Mahabodhi Temple [
40. VIEW IMAGE ]. During either
the 15th or 16th century a lone pilgrim from what is thought to
be Multan, came to Bodh Gaya, and after doing his devotions in crumbling
and overgrown temple, wrote a short record of his visit on the old
stone railing. It reads:

Homage to the Buddha. Let the merit which
is acquired by Jinadasa, a learned man who came from the mountainous
country Parvata, by means of visiting (this place) to behold the
Mahabodhi (image) reigning in its glory as the supreme Lord, go
first of all to his parent. Having done this act of merit it is
here written (by the scribe) Sangatta[
41. VIEW IMAGE ].

The last Indian Buddhist known to have visited Bodh Gaya was the
monk Buddhagupta. Born in South India during the last half of the
16th century, this indefatigable monk had already visited Afghanistan,
Kashmir, Ladakh, Sri Lanka, Java, the Laccadives and even East Africa
before he made his pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya. He seems to have spent
some time at the deserted temple meditating and performing pujas
before setting off again on his travels. Next he visited Nepal,
Tibet, Burma and northern Thailand, after which he disappeared from
history. From around the same period, the second half of the 15th
century, comes the last mention until modern times of a Sri Lankan
monk visiting Bodh Gaya. A monk named Dharmadivakara, apparently
a Mahayanist, came to Bodh Gaya and then decided to go on from there
to Wu Tai Shan in China. While at the sacred mountain he met some
Tibetans who invited him to their country where he travelled and
taught widely. However, the strain of several long years of travel,
the strange food and the cold climate all proved too much for poor
Dharmadivakara for we read that on his way back to Sri Lanka he
disrobed in Nepal and later died in India.

The desire to visit Bodh Gaya, but the inability of most Buddhists
to do so, especially after the advent of Muslim rule, resulted in
replicas of the Mahabodhi Temple being built in several Buddhist
countries. A very good copy was built in Pagan in the early 13th
century. This temple was in all likelihood based on plans brought
from India by the mission sent by King Kyanzittha [
42. VIEW IMAGE ]. Although not
a temple as such, a stupa in the form of the Mahabodhi Temple was
built in Tibet in 1452 to enshrine the remains of a famous lama.
In 1472, King Dhammacetiya of Pegu sent a large contingent of craftsmen
under the leadership of a Sri Lankan merchant to Bodh Gaya to worship
at the temple and also to make plans of it:

"In order that those who live in Hamsavati
might have great happiness, he had monks who were endowed with
the burdens of study and meditation embark at Bassein, together
with skilled masons, painters and builders, much treasure, royal
letters written on gold under the authority of his seal, and ambassadors
of greater and lesser rank to whom he entrusted many presents,
and hence sail with expedition to Bengal to visit the Bodhi Tree
at the centre of the world where the Buddha overcame Mara. When
all the monks had reached the site of the Bodhi Tree and the presents
had been offered, the painters made models of all the sites according
to their distances and dimensions and brought them back to the
place where the King dwelt".

The outcome of all this was a magnificent temple in Pegu called
Shewgugyi. It is difficult today to determine how faithful this
temple was to the original as it is now in a ruined state. In 1473,
the Chinese built a copy of the Mahabodhi Temple just outside Peking
and yet another in 1748. This first temple, called Wu Ta Szu, was
based on plans provided by a Tibetan monk, or according to another
account, on a gold and diamond studded model belonging to a monk
from India [ 43. VIEW
IMAGE ]. In the 16th century, a Nepalese layman named
Abhayaraj went on a pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya and made both plans
and a small model of the temple. On his return, he used these to
build a replica called the Mahabuddha Vihara in Patan. This beautiful
temple with its delicately moulded terracotta bricks was badly damaged
during the 1934 earthquake but rebuilt soon afterwards. Thailand
has two copies of the Mahabodhi Temple, one in Chiang Rai built
some time between the 16th and 18th centuries, and an earlier one,
the Mahabodharama, Wat Jet Yot; built by King Tilokaraja (1443-1487).
The Jinakalamali says that the king not only built a replica of
the Mahabodhi Temple but also tried to recreate all the man-made
and natural locations around it:

King Tilokaraja, having heard the Sri Lankan monks expound the
doctrine relating to Bodhi Trees, desired to plant one, and upon
looking for a place for that purpose, discovered the site of the
Mahabodharama. In 817 of the Little Era, the year of the Boar (1455
AD), he founded a monastery for the Mahathera Uttamapanna, northwest
of Chiang Mai, on the banks of the Rohini River, on a charming knoll.
That same year, he planted a Bodhi Tree, a sapling grown from the
tree at the foot of Deva Mountain which had come from a seed gathered
in former times from the southern branch (of the Bodhi Tree at Anuradhapura
in Sri Lanka) by monks who went to Simhala (Sri Lanka). The planting
of this sapling earned for the new monastery the name Mahabodharama.
After it was planted, the king had everything around it made in
conformity with the surroundings of the Bodhi Tree where Mara was
defeated, including the railing and the seven special locations.

Walking around the Mahabodharama must have been the closest one
could get to the atmosphere and the environment of Bodh Gaya without
actually going there [ 44. VIEW
IMAGE ].

Sometime between the last half of the 16th and the first half of
the 17th centuries, a wandering Saivite ascetic named Gossiain Ghainandi
Giri arrived in Bodh Gaya and decided to settle down there. In the
following centuries, Ghamandi's hermitage grew into, a large monastery
(math), and his successors the Mahants (abbots) into a powerful
and dubious influence in Bodh Gaya. The Giris are one of the orders
of the monks established by the great Hindu reformer Sankara in
the 9th century. The name of each order suggests the geographical
location its members are supposed to reside in. So the Vanas are
supposed to live in forests, the Puris in towns and the Giris on
hills and mountains. Each of the ten orders are also supposed to
be a part of a whole and co-equal but, as one would expect from
a Hindu institution, inequalities have emerged. The Giris are looked
down upon by the more 'orthodox' orders as being lax and even to
some extent impure. Giving his impression of the Giris at Bodh Gaya
in the last century, Mitra wrote:

"The monks lead an easy, comfortable life,
feasting on rich cakes (malpuya) and pudding (mohanbhog), and
freely indulging in the exhilarating beverage of bhanga. Few attempt
to learn the sacred books, and most of them are grossly ignorant.
The present Mahant is an intelligent man, but not particularly
well versed in the Sastras".

A book recently published by a Giri monk lists the 52 major Saivite
Maths in India in order of the esteem in which each is held. The
Bodh Gaya Math is towards the bottom at number 36. The establishment
of Ghamandi Giri's monastery was not the beginning of a Hindu presence
at Bodh Gaya. An inscription dated 807 mentions the setting up of
a stone lingam there by the son of a stonecutter named Kesava [
45. VIEW IMAGE ]. Some scholars
have suggested that the story told to Hsuan Tsang about the temple
being built by a brahmin on the advice of Mahesvara is evidence
of early Hinduization at Bodh Gaya. But this theory is quite unconvincing.
Buddhist legends and hagiographies are full of stories about brahmins
who converted to Buddhism on the advice of Hindu gods. This 'skilful
means' for demonstrating the superiority of Buddhism goes back to
the time of the Buddha himself. Even Kesava's inscription indicates
nothing more than that there were Hindus living at Bodh Gaya, possibly
employed by its monasteries, who wanted their own shrine to worship
in, and that, with typical tolerance, the Buddhists had no objection
to this. However it is true that at a late date the Bodhi Tree did
become one of the places that Hindu pilgrims to Gaya began to visit,
and if pilgrims came there to worship it would only be a matter
of time before Brahmins would move in to supervise their worship
and extract fees from them.

By the end of the 18th century, the Muslim rulers of India were
starting to give way to a new conqueror, the English. Already entrenched
in the sub-continent, some Englishmen were taking time off from
military affairs and trade to explore India's many antiquities.
It was in 1785 that Bodh Gaya first came to the attention of these
early explorers of the Indian past. A translation of what was thought
to be an inscription found by Francis Wilmont at Bodh Gaya was made
by Sir Charles Wilkins and published in the scholarly journal Asiatick
Researches. The inscription told of a certain Amaradeva who worshipped
the Buddha and built a temple at Bodh Gaya and therein "set
up the divine footprint of Vishnoo, for ever purifier of the sins
of mankind, the images of Pandoos and of the descendants of Vishnoo
and in a manner of Brahma and the rest of the divinities."
The date of the inscription was equivalent to the year 949 AD. No
later visitors to Bodh Gaya ever saw this inscription and scholars
came to the conclusion that it was a forgery. Discussing it in 1878
and speculating on its origins, Mitra wrote:

Its date, the era Vikramaditya 1005 = to AC 949,
would suggest the idea that the characters used in it were Kutila.
If so, it is difficult to conceive how either Mr Wilmont or Sir
Charles Wilkins could read it, as the key to that alphabet had
not then been discovered. It is obvious, therefore, that Mr Wilmont
must have seen the inscribed stone, which he requested a pandit
of monastery to decipher for him, and that worthy, unable to do
the needful, composed a rambling story of his own, in which he
not only glorified his own religion, but worked into it references
to all the leading remains of the place ... The date he put on
it was hit upon at random.

It would not be the last time that the Giris of Bodh Gaya would
be guilty of deception.

In 1773, Bhutan's defeat in a short war with the British resulted
in Tibet's Panchen Lama writing a letter to the Governor of Bengal,
Warren Hastings, offering to mediate a settlement. Hastings decided
to take advantage of this first friendly contact between British
India and Tibet to explore the possibilities of trade and sent a
mission led by George Bogle to visit the Panchen Lama. Bogle's record
of his visit sheds some light on Tibetan interest in Bodh Gaya during
the 18th century. Just prior to Bogle's visit, the Panchen Lama
had sent nine monks and three laymen led by Tung Rampa to Sarnath
and Bodh Gaya. The Maharaja of Varanasi, Chete Singh Bahadur, welcomed
the Tibetans, gave them letters of introduction for their onward
journey, palanquins and attendants and they were able to reach Bodh
Gaya in a fortnight. When the party, minus three monks who had succumbed
to the Indian heat, returned to Tibet, the Maharaja sent an envoy
with them to present gifts to the Panchen Lama. Among these presents
were a watch, elephant tusks and a model of the Mahabodhi Temple.
The Panchen Lama informed Bogle that he was interested in establishing
a temple in India, probably for pilgrims who might now feel it safe
to come because of the Pax Britannica. In his report to Hastings
Bogle wrote:

"About seven or eight hundred years ago, the
Tibetan pontiffs had many monasteries in Bengal, and their priest
used to travel to that country in order to study the religion
and language of the Brahmans, and to visit the holy places in
Hindustan. The Mussulmans, upon conquering Bengal, plundered and
destroyed their temples, and drove them out of the country. Since
that time there has been little intercourse between the two kingdoms.
The Lama is sensible that it will throw great lustre on his pontificate,
and serve to extend his fame and character, if he can, after so
long an interval, obtain a religious establishment in Bengal,
and he is very solicitous on this point. He proposes also, to
send some of his gylongs (monks), during the cold season, to wait
upon you in Calcutta, and afterwards to go on pilgrimage to Gaya
and other places ..."

Nothing ever came of the Panchen Lama's desire to build a temple
in India despite British readiness to help. Shortly after Bogle's
visit, Tibet decided to cut itself off from the outside world and
rebuffed all attempts by the British to make further contact. However
Bogle's account of his interview with the Panchen Lama shows that
the Buddhists of Tibet had by no means forgotten Bodh Gaya, that
they still held it in esteem and that they still desired to go there
on pilgrimage.

In the half century after Bogle's journey to Tibet, a whole string
of British artists, surveyors, travellers and amateur archaeologists
visited Bodh Gaya. The first of these were the famous artists William
and Thomas Daniell, who arrived in 1790 as a part of their tour
of North India and made some quick sketches of the niches on the
temple. The next visitor was Francis Buchanan, who came during the
survey of Bihar and Patna which he was commissioned by the government
to do in 1811. With his detailed description of the temple and its
surroundings, Bodh Gaya finally begins to reemerge into the light
of history after being in the shadows for nearly 400 years. But
what re-emerged was not the magnificent temple attended by monks
that Huien Tsang and Dharmasvamin saw, but a crumbling ruin that
was slowly being pulled down by people in the area in need of brick
and stone for building:

The great shine, or mandir, is a slender quadrangular pyramid of
great height, much resembling that of Koch, but its summit is broken
and a part hangs over in a very singular manner. This spire is,
on the three sides surrounded by a terrace about 25 or 30 feet high,
and the extreme dimensions of which are 78 feet wide by 98 feet
long, and one end of this terrace towards the cast has covered the
porch; but that has fallen, and brought down the part of the terrace
by which it was covered ... The porch has always been small, and
since it fell some persons have cleared among the ruins, and constructed
a gate of the fragments, the shine or cavity in the mandir that
is on a level with the ground, and the entrance to which was through
the porch, is small and covered with a Gothic arch, the plaster
work on which has been divided into small compartments, each containing
an image of a Buddha. The whole far end of the chamber has been
occupied by a throne of stone (singhasan) in a very bad taste and
which has been disfigured by a motley row of images taken from the
ruins and built on its front so as to hide part of the deity. This
is a monstrous misshapen daub of clay ... There is however, current
tradition of the original image having been gold, and of its having
been removed by the Muhammedans, so that the present image is supposed
to have been made after the sect had undergone persecution and could
no longer procure workmen capable of making a decent substitute.
Above this chamber are two others, one on the level of the old terrace,
and the other still higher; but with these the falling of the porch
has cut off all communication. Several of the people, however, in
the vicinity remember the porch standing, and have frequently been
in the chambers, a stair from the terrace leading to the uppermost.
The middle chamber has a throne, but the image has been removed,
and, if there ever was an image of gold, this was probably its place.
The terrace enlarges behind the temple towards the west, and forms
an area, on which is growing the Pipal tree ... The tree is in full
vigour, and cannot in all probability exceed 100 years in age; but
a similar one may have existed in some other place, when the temple
was entire.

Visitors to Bodh Gaya during this time who left pictorial records
of the temple include James Chichely and James Crockett, both officers
in the Bengal army and the famous artist Sir Charles D'Oyly [
46. VIEW IMAGE ]. In 1847, the
first attempt at an archaeological investigation was done at Bodh
Gaya, although it was more like curio hunting than what we think
of today as archaeology. Captain Markham Kittoe dug around the temple
and unearthed parts of the railing and several statues, some of
which were left lying there, while others were carried off to museums.
He also made an album of drawings of some of the sculptures. Another
archaeological investigation was undertaken in 1861 by Major Mead
under the direction of Alexander Cunningham. No reports of either
this or Kittoe's excavations were ever published, thus depriving
us of much valuable information concerning the temple's history.

All the accounts of these and other visitors to Bodh Gaya right
up to the 1880 restoration prove beyond doubt that the Giris and
their Mahant took no care of, or had any interest in, the temple.
The pinnacle was broken, the tower crumbling and the front porch
and the second storey chamber above it had collapsed [
47. VIEW IMAGE ]. So much rubble
had accumulated around the temple that one had to actually descend
into the main chamber and every rainy season it filled with stagnant
water. Buchanan mentioned that the shrines around the temple had
been demolished to provide bricks for construction work at the Mahant's
monastery.

An English civil servant on holiday at Bodh Gaya in 1866 wrote
in his note book: "The temple apparently fast falling into
ruin. It is a great pity that such a fine, old and picturesque looking
building could not be preserved". About a decade later, Sir
Richard Temple saw the withered Bodhi Tree and commented that it
was "in harmony with the fate which has overtaken the structure."
Statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas were scattered over a wide area
and were often put to very mundane uses. In 1891, Anagarika Dharmapala
wrote: It was most painful for me to witness the vandalism that
was taking place there constantly, unobserved doubtless by those
who would shudder at the sight. The most beautiful statues of the
teacher of Nirvana and the Law ... are still uncared for and quietly
allowed to perish by exposure. Wandering alone in the bamboo groves
to the cast of Lilajan I came across statues plastered to the walls
of an irrigating well ... Stones carved with Buddha images are to
be found used as weights to the levers for drawing water. I have
seen ryots (farmers) in the villages surrounding the temple using
admirably carved stones as steps to their huts. I have seen 3 feet
high statues in an excellent state of preservation buried under
rubbish, to the east of the Mahant's Baradari.

This neglect was not due to lack of funds on the part of the Mahant.
He was amongst the wealthiest landlords in Bihar, as is his successor
today. Rather, it was due to indifference. There is also ample evidence
that the Mahabodhi Temple was not used by the Hindus for religious
purposes until the 1890s. In 1811, Buchanan noted that the terrace
on the north side of the temple had been repaired and a stairway
built up to it so that "the orthodox may pass up without entering
the porch, and thus seeing the hateful image of Buddha". During
the Burmese restorations begun in 1877, numerous statues were moved
from where they had been lying and were cemented into the new wall
that was built around the temple. The small shrine sheltering the
Buddha's footprints was demolished and the stone itself moved to
the Pancha Pandu Temple. The Mahant would never have allowed any
of this to be done had the statues or the footprints been objects
of worship.

During Beglar's restorations, the buttress at the back of the
temple on which the Bodhi Tree had been growing was demolished and
a new tree planted in the ground. Again the Mahant had no objections
to these major changes. When Edwin Arnold visited the temple in
1886, he asked a Brahmin if he could have a leaf from the Bodhi
Tree. The priest replied: "Pluck as many as you like, sahib,
it is naught to us." Kittoe, Mead, Beglar, Cunningham, Arnold
and numerous others all entered the main chamber of the temple,
which would never have been permitted had it been used for Hindu
worship. Bodh Gaya's magnificent sculptures were used by local people
as doorsteps or grindstones or were carried off by visitors, and
this was stopped only when George Grierson made complaints about
it to the Mahant.

From the end of the 18th century, the Burmese began to renew the
interest they had in Bodh Gaya before this had been interrupted
by Muslim rule. A little before 1795, a delegation from Burma had
come to Bodh Gaya to collect water from the tank for the Burmese
king to bathe in. Other delegations came in 1811, 1823 and 1833.
Buchanan mentioned that just before his visit in 1811, a Burmese
pilgrim had succeeded in converting one of the Giris to Buddhism.
He also noted that although the new convert "now altogether
rejects the doctrine of orthodoxy" he was still "accommodated
and supported by the Mahant." Nor were the Burmese the only
Buddhists who began returning to Bodh Gaya. Referring to the period
just after the Angio-Nepalese War (1814-1816) one English writer
noted: When the peace threw open the lower provinces to the Hill
states, the people of Nepal, and its hither boundaries, visited
Gyah: they exclaimed, on beholding the statues and images, "Why,
you have got our gods among you!" These people are followers
of Boodh; yet the statues and images in the temples have all been
converted to the particular use of Bramah".

In 1874, Burma's greatest modern king, Mindon Min (1853-1878),
despatched an emissary to Calcutta requesting the Government of
India to help a delegation to offer gifts on his behalf to the Bodhi
Tree. Later, the Burmese Foreign Minister wrote to the government
asking permission to renovate the Mahabodhi Temple and to build
a monastery nearby to accommodate 20 monks on a permanent basis.
When the Mahant was asked for his opinion about this, he replied
that the Burmese could do what they liked so long as several Hindu
idols near the temple were not interfered with. In January 1877,
the delegation of officials, monks and artisans arrived at Bodh
Gaya and immediately set to work. While the faith and determination
of the Burmese may have been great, their understanding of the importance
of preserving the temple's original character was not, and inadvertently
they did enormous damage. When this situation came to the notice
of the authorities, Sir Stuart Brayley, the Secretary to the Government,
wrote to Rajendralala Mitra, the respected archaeologist, asking
him to visit Bodh Gaya and report on what was being done [
48. VIEW IMAGE ]. The letter
read in part:

It is not desired to interfere with the Burmese gentlemen beyond
giving them such guidance as may prevent any serious damage being
done to the temple, of which there seemed at one time some danger
from their laying bare a portion of the foundation; and to arrange
for such of the antiquities as are worth preserving being properly
taken care of. They are at present building them into walls, and
sticking foolish heads on to ancient torsos, etc. Mr Eden (Lt Governor
of Bengal) wishes to know if you can make it convenient to pay a
visit to Buddha Gaya to inspect the work and the remains collected,
and to give advice as to their value and to their disposition, and
whether there are any that should go to the Asiatic Society; and
generally to advise the Government in regard to the manner in which
the operations of the Burmese excavations should be controlled.

When Mitra did visit Bodh Gaya, he was horrified by what he saw.
The Burmese were, he reported, "perfectly innocent of archaeology
and history, and the mischief they have done by their misdirected
zeal has been serious. The demolitions and excavations already completed
by them have swept away most of the old landmarks, and nothing of
ancient times can now be traced on the area they worked upon."

When Anglo-Burmese relations deteriorated after the death of Mindon
Min, and the Burmese had to leave India, the government decided
to take over the responsibility for repairing the Mahabodhi Temple.
J.D. Bcglar was appointed to do the job under the guidance of Alexander
Cunningham, the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey.
The temple was badly decayed, but enough of the stucco facing on
some parts of both the sikhara and the terrace remained for Beglar
to know how to repair the parts that were missing. But when it came
to the front pavilion, which had been completely destroyed, it was
almost impossible to know how it had originally appeared. Cunningham's
advice was that it should be just cemented over to prevent further
decay, but just as this was being done a small ancient model of
the temple was discovered. Beglar used this fortuitous and timely
discovery to justify his rebuilding of the four corner sikharas
and the front pavilion as it is today. The discovery of other temple
models in later years proved that his restorations were uncannily
accurate. Although Beglar's main intention was to repair and restore
the temple, he also did some exploratory digging in and around it.
The most important discovery which resulted from this was made in
the temple chamber. As the granite pavement within it was uneven
it was decided to take it up and relay it. So that this could be
done the stone slabs of the altar built over the Vajrasana, which
dated from the early Pala period, were dismantled and inside was
found a second earlier shrine.

The plaster facing on this second altar, when examined, was found
to contain tiny fragments of coral, pearl, precious and semi-precious
stones. At its base was also found a clay ball encasing a collection
of gold and silver objects together with emeralds, rubies, sapphires,
crystal and coral. Also found was a piece of gold foil with the
impression of a coin from the reign of King Huvishka (approx. 2nd
century AD) on it, indicating that this second shrine could have
been erected at about this time. All this treasure was later deposited
in the British Museum [ 48a. VIEW
IMAGE ]. The dismantling of the second altar revealed
a third shrine, much damaged, and made from polished sandstone strongly
reminiscent of Mauryan stonework. On the front of this shrine were
four pilasters exactly the same as those on the Vajrasana depicted
in the Bharhut relief. Cunningham believed that the remains of Asoka's
temple had been discovered, and it would be hard to dispute his
conclusion. The three altars built one over the other are also strong
evidence that there had been at least two predecessors to the Mahabodhi
Temple.

Now that the physical structure of the temple had been repaired,
the right of Buddhists to administer it and worship in it had to
be secured [ 48b. VIEW
IMAGE ]. In 1886, Sir Edwin Arnold, recently retired
editor of the London Daily Telegraph and ardent Theosophist with
strong Buddhist sympathies, visited Bodh Gaya. As he stood in the
temple chamber, he was inspired to think that here the Buddha had
attained enlightenment but at the same time saddened by the lifelessness
of the place [ 49. VIEW
IMAGE ]. Later, when he went to Sri Lanka, he discussed
with the island's leading Buddhists the possibilities of reviving
the temple as a living centre of Buddhism:

I think there never was an idea that took root and spread so far
and fast as that thrown out thus in the sunny temple-court in Panadure,
amid the waving taliputs. Like those tropical plants that can be
almost seen to grow, the suggestion quickly became a universal aspiration,
first in Ceylon and next in other Buddhist countries.

Unfortunately, this response existed more in Arnold's imagination
than in reality. As later events demonstrated, Buddhism had long
since lost its universalist outlook, and most Asian Buddhists knew
little of, and cared even less, about anything beyond their own
country and culture. They were certainly interested in going on
pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya, but nothing more than that. Arnold wrote
to various influential figures in the home and colonial administration,
and while the idea was generally well received, everyone said the
initiative would have to come from the Buddhists themselves.

On January 22, 1891, a cart carrying a young Sri Lankan, Anagarika
Dharmapala, and his friend the Japanese monk, Kozen Gunaratana,
rumbled along the road that led from Gaya to Bodh Gaya [
50. VIEW IMAGE ]. For much of
the distance the two men saw "lying scattered here and there
broken statues of our Blessed Lord". On arriving at Bodh Gaya,
they walked to the back of the temple where the young Bodhi Tree
planted by Cunningham was growing. As Dharmapala worshipped at the
outer Vajrasana he had a sudden inspiration. He described what happened
in his diary:

As soon as I touched with my forehead the Vajrasana a sudden impulse
came to my mind to stop here and take care of this sacred spot,
so sacred that nothing in the world is equal to this place where
Prince Sakya Sinha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree [
51. VIEW IMAGE ].

It never occurred to Dharmapala that the temple might belong to
anyone, and indeed, exactly who did own it was by no means clear.
The government had spent a huge amount on its restoration and employed
a superintendent to look after its grounds, which would not have
been done had it been privately owned. On the other hand, the Mahant's
men cadged money from Hindu pilgrims and sightseers as if they owned
it. In actual fact, the temple belonged to no one. Like an abandoned
ship, it stood there waiting for someone to formally lay claim to
it. Three parties were about to do just that - Dharmapala on behalf
of Buddhists, the Mahant and a little later, the government.

Dharmapala had vowed that by Vaisakha, four months hence, the Mahabodhi
Temple would once again be a properly functioning Buddhist temple.
He moved into the resthouse that had been built by the Burmese king
and fired off letters pleading for help to Colonel Olcott, the kings
of Bhutan and Thailand, the Governor of Ceylon, Sir Edwin Arnold,
senior monks in Burma and Sri Lanka, the Lt Governor of Bengal and
numerous others. The response was disappointing, and when it became
apparent that Vaisakha would pass without him achieving his goal,
he reluctantly decided to return to Sri Lanka and try to muster
support there. The next four years were ones of ceaseless activity
for Dharmapala. He founded the Maha Bodhi Society with the aim of
recovering the temple and began publishing a magazine to inform
members of the Society's progress. He visited Burma, Sri Lanka and
China in order to raise both funds and support. But Dharmapala found
it very difficult to impart his enthusiasm to his fellow Buddhists.
Thailand's King Chulalongkorn failed to keep his promise of financial
support, and although the Maha Bodhi Journal was sent free to all
Thailand's English-speaking princes for more than 20 years, they
never donated more than a few rupees. The Dalai Lama, who had access
to vast resources, allowed himself to be made chief patron of the
Maha Bodhi Society but never made a single donation to it. The funds
Dharmapala collected during a lecture tour of Burma were later misappropriated
by a member of that country's branch of the Maha Bodhi Society.
On being told that the leading temples in Japan were collecting
funds for his work, Dharmapala stopped there on his way back from
America, only to find that the final sum amounted to a mere pittance.

Even in Sri Lanka, where he received more support than anywhere
else, raising funds and finding monks willing to stay in Bodh Gaya
proved to be an uphill task. Meanwhile the Mahant, alarmed by the
sudden Buddhist activities at the Mahabodhi Temple and aware of
the legal ambiguities concerning its ownership, began claiming that
it belonged to him. When the government expressed some hesitation
over the temple's legal status the Mahant's claim suddenly became
an emphatic assertion. When the Lt Governor of Bengal, Sir Charles
Elliott, visited Bodh Gaya in August 1891 to find out first hand
what was going on, the Collector of Gaya, George Grierson, advised
him that with potential international interest in the temple it
was important not to let it fall into private hands and recommended
that it be acquired as a national monument. The Mahant, on the other
hand, made it clear to Elliott that he had no intentions of relinquishing
his grip on the temple. Being unsure of what to do and anxious to
avoid possible 'religious complications' with Hindus, the government
procrastinated.

On his way back from the Parliament of Religions in 1893, Dharmapala
had stopped in Japan where his friend Kozcn Gunaratna had given
him a beautiful 700 year old statue of the Buddha to install in
the Mahabodhi Temple [ 52. VIEW
IMAGE ]. For the next two years, the statue sat in the
Maha Bodhi Resthouse at Gaya while Dharmapala awaited permission
to put it in the temple. Finally, early in the morning of February
25th, 1895, Dharmapala awoke and after a period of meditation, resolved
that come what may he would put the statue in the temple and worship
it there. He and his helpers arrived in Bodh Gaya just before sunrise
and immediately took the statue to the upstairs chamber of the temple
and placed it on the empty shrine. He was just about to offer lamps
and flowers when the Mahant's men armed with lathes and clubs burst
in. Angrily shouting, they knocked the lamps from one of the monks'
hands and pushed Dharmapala. Refusing to either retaliate or be
intimidated, Dharmapala sat down cross-legged in front of the shrine.
Soon some Giris came, grabbed the statue, took it downstairs and
dumped it under the verandah of the Pancha Pandu Temple. Dharmapala
decided to take legal action against the Giri monks. All his friends
advised against it, knowing it would only harden the already intransigent
Mahant. They were also aware that while the moral right of Buddhists
to worship in the Mahabodhi Temple was unimpeachable, their legal
right to do so was far less certain.

On March 30th 1895, the Viceroy Lord Elgin arrived in Gaya. He
assured the municipal authorities and local Indian dignitaries who
assembled to welcome him that his visit had nothing to do with the
recent disturbances at the Mahabodhi Temple and shortly afterwards
left for Bodh Gaya. Accompanied by a small group of English officers
and the solicitous Mahant, the Viceroy entered the main chamber
of the temple, but when he emerged "Lo and behold! the Japanese
image had disappeared." Mr Forbes, the Commissioner of Patna,
spoke "very distinctly" to the Mahant, who in turn spoke
to one of his men, and by the time the Viceroy finished circumambulating
the temple the statue had miraculously reappeared. The incident
created a very bad impression and must have made the Mahant even
more anxious about where the government's sympathies would lie during
the coming court case.

The Bodh Gaya Temple Case opened on April 8th 1895. Three Giri
monks and two others were charged under Sections 295, 296 and 297
of the Indian Penal Code, which makes it a criminal offence to desecrate
a place or object of worship, to disrupt a lawful act of worship
and to trespass in a place of worship. All five were also charged
under Section 143, which covers unlawful assembly to commit any
of the above offences, and one was also charged under Section 352
for using criminal force against Dharmapala. The case for the prosecution
was summarised in the court transcript thus:

The question of who is the proprietor of the Temple is ... quite
irrelevant to this case, but the prosecution must incidentally challenge
the assertion of the defence that the Mahanth is sole and absolute
proprietor, and looking to all the facts connected with its repair
and guardianship by Government, Dharmapala had good reason for considering
Government to be the proprietor, and Government, in taking over
the Guardianship, undoubtedly continued freedom of worship to the
Buddhists. Assuming, however, for the sake of argument, that the
Mahanth was in some sort of possession, and was allowed to enjoy
a certain usufruct in taking offerings, such possession was nevertheless
subject to the long-standing right of every Buddhist to worship
and perform any ceremony in accordance with the tenets of his religion
in the temple, and neither Government nor Mahanth is entitled to
prevent the full exercise of that right.

The trial was long and involved; however several points that emerged
from it are worth highlighting. Witnesses testified that they never
entered the Mahabodhi Temple because, as Hindus, they would be defiled
if they did. A Hindu pandit from the Government Zillah School testified
that although he had visited Bodh Gaya several times, he had never
gone inside the temple because "it is a Buddhist temple and
Hindus are forbidden to enter such." One Bepin Behari testified
that he had heard "Brahmin priests, accompanying Hindu pilgrims
to a pipal tree in the compound, forbid them entering the temple
because of it being a 'Jain one' ". The court also established
that the Hindu worship conducted by the Mahanl in the temple was
spurious and was done only "on the pretext of interfering with
the dealings of the Buddhists in the Temple and strengthening whatever
prescriptive rights he may possess to the usufruct of the offerings
made at the Temple". At the end of the trial, two of the accused
were acquitted, while the three Giris were found guilty under Section
296 and sentenced to a month's imprisonment and a fine of Rs 100.
Although technically a victory, the judgment was a blow for Dharmapala.
The trial had cost the Maha Bodhi Society RS 22.500, without getting
any closer to controlling the temple, and had turned the Mahant
into an implacable enemy of the Buddhists.

But worse was to come. The Mahant eventually appealed to the Calcutta
High Court, which set aside the convictions. It also found that
because Dharmapala had at one time offered to buy the temple from
the Mahant, he had thereby sufficiently established, at least for
the purposes of the case, that the Mahant did own the temple. The
only positive point to emerge from the whole affair was that, after
an exhaustive examination of all the evidence, the Court noted that
"the question of what the exact nature and extent of the Mahant's
control over the temple is, the evidence addressed in the case does
not enable us to determine."

In 1898, Lord Curzon, British India's greatest administrator, became
Viceroy. Curzon had a highly developed sense of history and of his
place in it. As a successor to Asoka, Harsha, Akbar and Hastings,
he believed he should do everything in his power to preserve, protect
and enhance India's greatness, including its ancient monuments.
During a visit to Mandalay in November 1901, he had been presented
with a petition by a group of Buddhists from the Kuthodaw Pagoda
expressing concern over the whereabouts of the gifts that the former
king of Burma had offered to the Bodhi Tree in 1875. The gifts had
consisted of votive offerings, statues, flowers and bowls all made
out of pure gold and valued at RS 60,000. Curzon promised to investigate
the matter. On his return to Calcutta, he asked the Acting Lt. Governor
of Bengal to give him a full report on the matter and thus became
acquainted with the situation at Bodh Gaya for the first time. After
studying the whole affair with his typical thoroughness, Curzon
privately made it quite clear whose side he was on. Like many of
the English upper class with an interest in the Orient, Curzon saw
the Buddha as a rational reformer, who had an opinion of Brahmin
humbug and priestcraft similar to his own. The beautiful temple
built on the spot where India's greatest son became enlightened
had, he believed, to be rescued from the greedy, superstitious Brahmins
and made a national monument for the greater glory of the British
Indian Empire.

In January 1903, Lord Curzon decided to visit Bodh Gaya both to
see the temple and also to quiz the Mahant. When the two men met,
Curzon asked why the Mahant, a Hindu, worshipped the Buddha. The
Mahant replied that he looked upon the Buddha as an avatara of Vishnu.
When Curzon pointed out that the Mahant was a devotee of Siva, not
Vishnu, all the latter could say was that he was simply following
'ancient custom'. Curzon left Bodh Gaya confident that the previously
intransigent Mahant might now prove to be more 'malleable'. Not
wanting to appear to be personally involved, the Viceroy now got
Bourdillon, the Acting Lt. Governor of Bengal, and Charles Olden,
the Collector of Gaya, to put pressure on the Mahant. Olden called
the Mahant for a meeting and reminded him that several court cases
had by no means established his ownership of the temple and that
if the government was forced to the remedy of 'special legislation',
it could go bad for him. Moving from veiled threats to hints of
rewards, Olden then suggested that should the Mahant be cooperative,
the government might consider granting him some mark of esteem.

He then proposed five terms: (1) that the Mahabodhi Temple be considered
a purely Buddhist one, (2) that it be handed over to the government
in trust, (3) that the Bodhi Tree be reserved exclusively for Buddhist
worship, (4) that the other pipal tree in the northern part of the
sacred precincts be reserved for Hindu worship and (5) that the
Mahant be considered grounds landlord, and as such, that he continue
to receive customary gifts and fees from Hindu visitors to Bodh
Gaya. Pointing out that there just happened to be a lawyer in the
next room Olden then suggested that an agreement be drafted and
signed straight away. The Mahant must have been feeling more than
a little intimidated. However, it was an eminently fair agreement,
and he promised to give it careful thought. Olden wrote to the Viceroy's
private secretary: "In the end he appeared to agree, and even
went so far as to promise that he would do what I might suggest."
But during the two men's next meeting the Mahant began to haggle,
and it soon became clear that he would sign no agreement. Exasperated,
Bourdillon decided to try another approach.

A commission was established to examine how and by whom the temple
should be administered. Care was taken to select commissioners who
had impeccable Hindu credentials so as to placate Hindu opinion
but who were at the same time known to be in favour of Buddhist
control of the Mahabodhi Temple. The commission was chaired by Hariprasad
Shastri, the respected Sanskrit scholar and principal of the Sanskrit
College in Calcutta. After meeting for some time and interviewing
numerous witnesses, the commission handed down its recommendations.
It found that despite the obvious Buddhist origins of the temple
and despite the spurious Hindu worship being offered in it, the
temple had been abandoned centuries ago and the Mahant had the right
to claim it. It recommended that the management of the temple be
vested in a board of five Hindus from which Buddhists be excluded.
This was not the finding Curzon wanted, and he was extremely annoyed.
He was also at the end of his patience, and soon more pressing concerns
caught his attention. A genuine effort by Lord Curzon to wrest the
Mahabodhi Temple from the Mahant and make it accessible to all had
failed. He also failed to ever find out what happened to the gifts
Mindon Min had offered at the Bodhi Tree, but few doubted that they
had ended up in the Mahant's coffers.

Dharmapala's failure to win control of the temple through negotiation
and legal action now compelled him to try other means. He began
a campaign to win sympathy from liberal Hindus and the newly emerging
leaders of the Indian National Congress. Except for Mohendas Gandhi,
most men in the Congress hierarchy were secular in outlook and more
favourably disposed to Buddhism than Hinduism. In 1922, at the Gaya
Conference of the INC, the first substantial steps were taken to
get Indian political leaders involved in the issue. The Maha Bodhi
Society had prepared its strategy well. Copies of a booklet giving
the temple's history and arguing for its control by Buddhists were
distributed to every delegate. The Burmese delegate (Burma was administered
as a part of India at that time) raised the issue and proposed that
a committee be set up to investigate the temple's status. Rajendra
Prashad, the respected Bihari lawyer, was appointed to head the
committee. It was a fortuitous choice. Prashad developed a personal
interest in the Mahabodhi Temple issue, and in his role as a leading
Congressman and later as independent India's first president, he
did much to further the Buddhists' cause [
53. VIEW IMAGE ].

One of the other people on the committee was Swami Ramodar Dass,
who later converted to Buddhism, ordained as a monk and became famous
under the name Rahula Sankrityayan. By the time the INC's Belgaum
Conference convened, in 1924, Prashad's committee had still not
met. However, a delegation of Buddhists from Sri Lanka, Burma and
Nepal attended the conference and lobbied its leaders. They met
with Gandhi, who was reluctant to have the matter discussed before
the Congress, but after long and detailed arguments from the Buddhists,
he finally agreed. At first Gandhi's views on the temple's ownership
were quite unambiguous:

"There is no doubt that the possession of
the Temple should vest in the Buddhists. There may be legal difficulties.
They must be overcome".

Several years later, however, he was far less certain that the
legal difficulties could be overcome and, sadly, history proved
that his doubts were justified.

I can only give you my assurance that everything that was humanly
possible for me to do to advance your claim I did and I shall still
do. I can only tell you however, that the Congress does not possess
the influence that I would like it to possess. There are several
difficulties raised in connection with proprietary rights. There
are technical, legal difficulties also in the way ... However, I
can tell you that all my personal sympathies are absolutely with
you and, if the rendering of its possession to you was in my giving,
you can have it today.

The liberal and pro-Buddhist Swami Viswananda suggested to the
Buddhists that if they promised to support a ban on cow slaughter
and beef eating in their own countries, one of Gandhi's pet causes,
they would win much goodwill from the Congress delegates. The Buddhists
jumped at the suggestion. The Sri Lankan representative, Dr Cassias
A. Perera, said that beef eating had been introduced into his country
by the British. The Nepalese representative told everyone that in
his country the penalty for slaughtering a cow was death. He conveniently
forgot to mention that this bizarre law had been passed by Nepal's
Hindu king and that the idea of executing a human being for any
reason, let alone for killing an animal, would be abhorrent to a
Buddhist. No matter, Gandhi and the other Hindu Congressmen were
impressed, and the motion to discuss the Mahabodhi Temple issue
was passed unanimously.

It was decided that Rajendra Prashad's hitherto inactive committee
should be extended to become a joint effort of the INC and the All
India Hindu Mahasabha, an influential but conservative Hindu body.
When the Mahasabha convened in 1925, its 4,000 delegates representing
all shades of Hindu opinion were addressed by Dharmapala. As a result,
a resolution was adopted calling for Buddhists to have the right
to worship in the temple and to have a say in its management. Unfortunately,
the general goodwill of the Hindu public was not matched by the
Mahant, who refused to have anything to do with the committee sent
to negotiate with him. In 1928, the Burmese MLA, U Tok Kyi, tried
to introduce a bill that would provide for a management board to
be elected by Buddhists from India, Burma and Sri Lanka, with the
Mahant as chairman and protecting Hindu rights to worship at the
temple so long as blood sacrifices were not offered. The bill was
not debated. By this time Anagarika Dharmapala was old and in increasingly
poor health. He gradually bowed out of the struggle, leaving the
work to his deputy Devapiya Valisinha. Dharmapala died in 1933 without
seeing the goal of his life fulfilled.

The skill and success that the Buddhists had in cultivating friendly
relationships with most Hindus was well illustrated by what happened
at the All India Hindu Mahasabha Conference at Kanpur in 1935. The
well-known Burmese Buddhist monk, U Ottama, was elected conference
chairman and a large delegation of Buddhists from India, Japan and
Burma attended. The Conference expressed its support for the bill
before the Legislative Assembly and formed as a second committee
to work hand in hand with Prashad's. Not everyone was happy that
an orthodox Hindu organisation should be so generous to Buddhists.
While the resolution was being discussed, several swamis rushed
at the dais to try to prevent it being passed. The joint committee
found it had its work cut out for it. It received a flood of letters
from Hindu organisations in Sri Lanka claiming that the Hindu temple
at Kataragama had been taken over by Buddhists and requesting that
the Mahabodhi Temple should not be returned to Buddhists until the
Kataragama temple was returned to Hindus. Prashad was exasperated
by how complex the whole issue was becoming and how little cooperation
he was getting from the Mahant.

Later, his committee travelled to Bodh Gaya to negotiate with the
Mahant. It had been decided not to discuss his existing legal rights
but to arrange an amicable settlement but, as stubborn as ever,
he refused even to discuss the matter. In desperation and on his
own initiative, Prashad offered to 'buy him out' but even this would
not move him. As this course of action was obviously not going to
achieve anything, Devapiya Valisinha urged the Burmese MLA, Thein
Maung, to introduce a bill, substantially the same as the one that
was rejected in 1928, to the Legislative Assembly. As Burma was
soon to be separated from India, after which Burmese would no longer
sit in the Assembly, Thein Maung moved quickly. Although the bill
was introduced, it was never debated. After years of delay, Rajendra
Prasad finally placed his report on the Mahabodhi Temple before
the All-India Congress at Delhi on 6th March 1937, and made it clear
that its recommendations would be taken up by the appropriate minister
as soon as Congress took office under the new Constitution. But
just as it looked like a bill legislating joint control of the temple
would be introduced, all Congress ministers in the Legislative and
State Assemblies resigned in block in 1939, in protest against the
British.

As soon as the war ended the Maha Bodhi Society recommenced its
campaign by sponsoring a joint Buddhist-Hindu conference in Patna.
Jajaratnarayan Lal, President of the Bihar Provincial Hindu Mahasabha,
said that he accepted that Buddhists should have some say in managing
the Mahabodhi Temple. Rajendra Prashad, chairman of the conference
and by then President of the Constituent Assembly, went even further.
He publicly urged the Mahant to accept the principle of joint control.
A year later, at the Inter Asia Conference in Delhi, delegates from
China, Tibet, Nepal, Burma and Sri Lanka urged Nehru, the new prime
minister of India, to bring a quick and satisfactory resolution
to the problem. He promised to offer "all support for the restoration
of Bodh Gaya to Buddhists". Apart from his personal leaning
towards Buddhism, Nehru was anxious that newly independent Asian
countries, including his immediate neighbours Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim,
Sri Lanka and Burma, should look to India as a friend. In a letter
to his principal private secretary, Nehru expressed his desire that
Bodh Gaya should have a "certain international character"
and that it would be "a graceful gesture to the Buddhist world"
to appoint an advisory committee made up of non-Indian Buddhists
to help manage the temple.

Large numbers of pilgrims had been coming to Bodh Gaya since the
beginning of the century, and yet nothing was done to provide for
their needs or to improve the temple. A Hindu visitor in 1930 had
written that "so much dirt had gathered on the floor that the
stone flooring had become quite unusable. So great was the dirt
that the stench emanating from it was a little hard to endure".
When she sought the Mahant's permission to clean the temple, he
refused to give it. This devout Hindu also noticed that the Mahant
tried to discourage Hindus from offering sadhanas at the Bodhi Tree
by telling them that it was inhabited by flesh-eating ghosts. Early
in 1946, a branch had fallen off the Bodhi Tree, and the Maha Bodhi
Society took the opportunity to once again draw attention to the
temple's mismanagement. The situation was becoming an embarrassment
to a newly independent India conscious of its image and it was clear
that something had to be done.

Finally in 1948, after years of lobbying from the Maha Bodhi Society
and, since independence, behind-the-scene pleading and arm-twisting
by people like Nehru and Prashad, the draft Bodh Gaya Temple Act
was circulated for public comment. The Act would provide for a committee
of four Buddhists and four Hindus, with the District Magistrate
of Gaya as ex-officio chairman. It was a profound disappointment
for Buddhists because, as the chairman would inevitably be a Hindu,
it meant that the management committee would always have a Hindu
majority. The Maha Bodhi Society organised public meetings amongst
India's tiny Buddhist communities where the Act was condemned as
"highly inadequate". But it was clear that the Act was
as good as the Buddhists were going to get, and when it finally
passed on June 19, 1949, the Maha Bodhi Society put on a brave face
and welcomed it as a "victory".

Less willing to accept a compromise, the Mahant tried to obtain
an interim injunction restraining the government from enforcing
the Act, although he later gave up such efforts. On Vaisakha Day,
28 May 1953, the ceremonial transfer of control of the Mahabodhi
Temple from the Mahant to the new management committee took place
[ 54. VIEW IMAGE
]. A large crowd turned up to see the historic ceremony,
and the President and Prime Minister of India, together with leaders
of all Buddhist countries, sent messages of congratulations. As
the historic moment approached a procession of monks preceded by
an orchestra of lamas led the participants to the dais. The Mahant
chanted Sanskrit hymns, Dr H. Saddhatissa chanted Pali gathas, everyone
stood in silence and then, at exactly 5.30 pm, the deed of control
was handed over. Almost immediately,
the new management committee began making improvements and long
overdue repairs. The state government laid on electricity and water,
and plans were made to build a museum and a resthouse for pilgrims.
Many of these improvements were in preparation for the Buddha Jayanti
in 1956, which the government of India planned to celebrate in full
and during which hundreds of thousands of people were expected to
visit Bodh Gaya and other sacred places.

Despite being an avowedly secular state, India celebrated the
Buddha Jayanti with as much enthusiasm as many Buddhist countries,
mainly due to the personal interest of Nehru
[ 55a. VIEW IMAGE ]. It sponsored
an international conference of Buddhist scholars, a special travelling
exhibition of Buddhist art, published two books, produced a film
and issued a stamp to commemorate the event. Indian Railways offered
generous concessions for pilgrims, and the Bihar State Government
commenced publishing the Pali Tipitika in Devanagari script. At
Bodh Gaya itself, the highlight of the year's celebrations took
place between the 23rd and the 25th of May, when thousands of Buddhists
from all over the world participated in a special puja while an
aeroplane sprinkled flowers over the temple. Later in the year,
on the 25th,of December, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama arrived
in India to a tumultuous welcome. Three days later, carefully watched
by their Chinese minders, the two prelates delivered sermons and
conducted pujas under the Bodhi Tree. [ 55.
VIEW IMAGE ].

In 1966, a Draft Master Plan for the development of Bodh Gaya
was published which envisaged acquiring 300 acres around the temple
for parks and the undertaking of complete archaeological excavation
of the area, all at a cost of RS 1,700,000. It was a bold and imaginative
plan which would have preserved a peaceful rural atmosphere around
Bodh Gaya and guaranteed rational urban development. But years passed
with nothing being done, by which time the changing situation required
a revised plan which, decades later, looks like it will never be
implemented.

During the 1980s, resurgent Hindu fundamentalism began to change
the face of Indian politics which in turn indirectly precipitated
a series of unfortunate events at Bodh Gaya. In 1991, the Janatha
Dal candidate, Laloo Yadav, became Chief Minister of Bihar, the
state in which Bodh Gaya is situated. Yadav was a member of the
scheduled caste community and had never disguised his hostility
to orthodox Hinduism. Early in 1992, he circulated a draft copy
of a bill whose purpose was to replace the 1949 Bodh Gaya Temple
Act with a new Bodh Gaya Mahavihar Act which would hand management
of the Mahabodhi Temple to Buddhists. The bill also proposed to
ban Hindu weddings being solemnised in the temple and the immersion
of Hindu idols in the tank, both recent practices. The first proposal
was welcomed by Buddhists although the other two were not; Buddhists
have never advocated limiting Hindu worship in the temple. While
many believed that the proposed bill was meant to be a slap in the
face of orthodox Hinduism and a way for Yadav to win voles from
the newly politically aware low caste communities, it nonetheless
highlighted unresolved Buddhist grievances about Bodh Gaya. For
years there had been persistent allegations of theft of both funds
and antiquities from the temple, and Buddhists on the management
committee had long complained that their suggestions for improvements
to the temple were routinely voted down by the Hindu majority. When
the Mahant became aware of the bill, he vowed to oppose it by "all
means at my disposal". He was supported by the Bharatiya Janata
Party, the party that drew support from Hindu fundamentalists, and
suddenly Bodh Gaya became drawn into the volatile world of Indian
party politics.

On 16th May, Vaisakha Day, arguments and threats escalated into
violence. There are conflicting accounts of what happened but reliable
sources say that events unfolded thus. A group of between 150 and
200 Ambedkarites (outcast converts to Buddhism) arrived in Bodh
Gaya to celebrate the Buddha's enlightenment. They were accosted
by the Brahmin in the Pancha Pandu Temple, who routinely demands
money from visitors. They refused and he insulted them. That such
people are still subject to Brahmin contempt when they visit the
most sacred shrine of the religion they have adopted in order to
escape that very type of treatment, must have been particularly
galling. They returned the brahmin's insults and a brief scuffle
broke out. The Ambedkarites then entered the Pancha Pandu Temple,
tore off the Hindu vestments that were draped on the Buddha statues
and then marched to the Mahabodhi Temple itself and tried to break
the Siva lingam placed on the floor. Fears that the trouble at Bodh
Gaya might trigger serious riots, like those caused by the recent
dispute over the Babri Mosque at Ayodhya, were quite out of proportion,
but troops were posted around the temple just in case. The problem
and its solution were well summed up by the editorial in The Hindustan
Times on 2nd June 1992:

The Bodh Gaya Temple, whose antiquarian past is shrouded in mystery,
is associated with Lord Buddha's message of harmony and peace, and
as such holds a pride of place among Buddhist shrines all over the
world. Yet it was an irony that the Buddhists did not have any say
in the temple management, which remained in the hands of the Mahant
of the area, whose strong-arm methods against agricultural labourers
spawned a powerful popular movement in the seventies and the eighties
and who, incidentally, owns vast tracts of land, far in excess of
the ceiling fixed under the law. It required the persuasive skills
of national leaders like DR Rajendra Prasad and enactment of the
Bodh Gaya Temple Act, 1949, to get the temple freed from the Mahant's
clutches and involve the Buddhists in its management. Even under
the Act, the temple management remained, in effect, in the hands
of the Hindus, much against the wishes of the Buddhists. Some of
the Janata Dal leaders whose antipathy towards the upper castes
is scarcely concealed, found in the temple issue an opportunity
to consolidate their position among the backward classes, more so
the neo-Buddhists, both within and without the State. Thus was brought
in the draft of a Bill seeking to hand over the management almost
entirely to the Buddhists and banning Hindu sacraments in its premises.
With certain Hindu organisations jumping into the fray, the once
peaceful temple is heading towards trouble. It is a reflection of
the changing times that the Hindus and Buddhists, who have for centuries
worshipped shoulder to shoulder at the temple, are being pitted
as adversaries. And that too in the name of a temple from where
the message of universal love and peace emanated. It would be a
travesty of justice if the Buddhists were not to enjoy a pre-eminent
position in the management of the temple. But even they would not
deny the right of worship to those Hindus, who regard the temple
as sacred. The dispute can be resolved without much difficulty through
talks between the leaders of the two communities in a give-and-take
manner.

How things will unfold at Bodh Gaya remains to be seen, but it
is unlikely that a dispute which has already dragged on for nearly
a hundred years can be settled "without much difficulty".
Either way, Bodh Gaya's power to fascinate and move visitors and
its importance as a focal point for Buddhist devotion will remain
unchanged. May it be so forever.